'Burn Notice' Recap: Which Character Sacrifices Themselves For Michael?

Burn Notice didn't have a great episode last week. Thankfully, it rebounds this week with an episode that's more plausible and heavier on the real spy action.

Michael is hiding in the plants somewhere and not too happy about it, while Burke (Adrian Pasdar) is interrogating their "guest" Serrano (Ricardo Chavira) about an arms deal he did in Haiti. Serrano's not talking until he sees via laptop that Michael, albeit very reluctantly, is in his daughter's bedroom with a gun pointed at her head. He understandably cracks, so Burke calls off Michael, while giving Serrano a gun with a single bullet in case he wants to check out before his Russian friends find out he talked. Serrano calmly smokes a cigarette before shooting himself. It's one of the darker openings in Burn Notice history.

After that, our hero calls Strong (Jack Coleman), all upset. "Make them understand I can't do this," he insists, adding that Burke has now asked for Sam and Jesse to be brought in for a job in Cuba. Strong really doesn't care how Michael feels, so Michael breaks a glass instead. The next morning he's reunited with Sam and Jesse, telling them that their task is to break out a woman named Sonya (Alona Tal, Supernatural) being held by the aforementioned Russians in a secret prison. Michael's plan is to pretend he's a double agent, convince the Russians to evacuate the prison and grab Sonya when they do. Jesse suggests having someone in Miami grab an old Russian contact of his to help sell the story. That someone, of course, is Fiona, and she brings Madeline along.

Back in Cuba there's some "sufficiently gross" work to hide a transmitter on Michael before he goes to make contact with the Russians, who do not give him a warm welcome (because the Russians vs. USA thing is one of the oldest plot points in the book). He's handcuffed to a chair before he meets Vladimir (because there's always a Russian guy named Vladimir). Meanwhile, Fiona makes the boneheaded decision to leave Jesse's acquaintance Ivan alone with Maddie, so he promptly escapes. You'd think an experienced soldier like Fiona would know better than to leave a prisoner alone with a civilian, especially a retiree. Thankfully, the escape is short-lived, so our team is ultimately able to sell their story.

It doesn't work like they planned, though. Rather than flee, Vladimir decides to stay put and up security at the secret prison, which of course is counter-productive to Michael's ultimate goal. Elsewhere, Burke dispatches Sam and Jesse to kidnap a random Russian agent - out of the bunch that just nearly captured them - so that person can be framed as another traitor. That abduction goes pretty easy, especially when compared to how much of an annoyance Fiona and Maddie's new friend has turned out to be. He wants them to write a letter to his girlfriend before he'll capitulate. He starts talking about how he didn't want to be a spy and was trying to pay for his girlfriend's nursing school, which strikes a chord with Fiona, who says she'll put most of the money she's about to move in another account for said girlfriend.